Sleeping Beauty
by testa de cuaderno
Summary: The day he left was unbearable for Sora, and I had to watch it happen. Now I'm holding a match and I'm wondering if I'm going to watch the same thing happen to myself. Soriku, Akuroku, perhaps bits of Zemyx later, T - mentions of death/suicide attempts,ec
1. Prologue

**Sleeping Beauty**

**Prologue **

The day Riku left was a nightmare. Sora was unprepared. He spent the day crying at the beach just outside of town. Riku would never come back. The month following was just as horrible. He wasn't made to go to school for that time. Everyone was worried. After that first month he seemed to remember that he was a living being and not, though he wished he were, dead. He went back to school. At first this seemed good—Sora was getting better. But it turned out differently than thought. His friends, though they accepted him and stuck around for a good time, could not start a conversation with him. Everything reminded the boy of Riku and Riku was a touchy subject that was understood as not to be brought up, ever. His family and friends only addressed him when absolutely necessary, getting straight to the point. Sora didn't mind this. He didn't mind anything anymore. He was a glob of gum under a park bench. He just sat there and no one wanted to touch him.

This went on for quite some time. No one left him, no one abandoned him, for it seemed quite the opposite. After about a year Sora met some people. He adopted a social life again. Everyone was stunned; Who were these people that could get Sora to get out and about? He still didn't talk. Kairi looked betrayed when the information got to her.

The next month Sora was talking again. He added his input to conversations sometimes. Sometimes he smiled. He was no longer a lifeless doll. He left the house more often, always meeting his friends. It was still unheard of to talk of Riku around him. Sora's parents wanted to meet his friends. "Why don't you have them over sometime?" The boy just shook his head.

Sora was never home anymore. Always out with "friends". Friends that nobody knew and everyone wanted to know. The brunette boy went straight from school to meet his friends and home only hours later. He was barely passing classes anymore. His family was worried. He didn't care. In fact, little mattered to Sora these days. These were days of almost fake optimism, sneaking out, and lies. No one seemed to notice.

Soon enough they were recognized together, and then everyone knew. News travels fast in a little place like Twilight Town. The news? Sora had joined a gang. It gave him a rush, woke him up from what seemed to most who knew him to be a Sleeping Beauty slumber. Though perhaps this didn't quite fit the fairytale. After all, Sleeping Beauty didn't wake up to find a couple of bad influence gang boys, she woke up to true love's kiss and her prince returned. Sora's prince hadn't returned, he never would, so the fairytale was changed, perhaps.

The "friends" that Sora spent his time with, despite the warnings that others would give, were two boys in their twenties. One was tall and resembled a dog because of the odd hat he wore. The other was short and stout and looked somewhat like a duck with the way he usually pursed his lips. These boys, to the paranoid townspeople of Twilight Town, were trouble. Their names are Donald and Goofy. Originally from a town far away and unheard of, they separated from the larger gang and came to Twilight Town to find someone they referred to as The Key, or Sora.

No one could seem to understand, how could someone who was formerly as sweet and naïve as Sora join a gang? The answer was simple. It woke him up, he stayed alive. And so far there had been no real trouble from the boys, so his parents ignored it. They were just glad to have their son back, alive. No more Sleepy Beauty.

And then it happened. Around town people started going missing. At first it was only a few, little Rikku went first and her two sisters followed. No one could find them. They were assumed kidnapped. But it got worse. More people disappeared around town and in quicker intervals. Soon the problem spread out from Twilight Town to other towns. People were worried; what if they themselves or a loved one were to vanish next? The only clue to the puzzle was a small creature left in place of the missing persons on their beds. A black thing with long antennae and golden eyes, looking around nervously, with a small keyhole imprint on it's back. No footprints, no fingerprints, no hairs. Nothing but the unknown animal.

During that time Sora was coming home later and later and skipping more and more of his classes. Everyone was too caught up with the latest news on who'd been kidnapped last--and whether it was possible to get the CSI to come take a look--to notice Sora's own disappearances. Sora was a good boy, no need to worry. And as for his gang friends? The most they had on their criminal record was a graffiti writing "Find The Key, Find The Answer". Of course they weren't the culprits.

I know all this for myself, I noticed everything poor Sora went through. I was there the whole time, unnoticed. I took care of him at school, covered for him when he snuck away, and hoped, just hoped, that he would be his old self again. I approved of his "gang" because it brought back some of the old Sora, some of my brother. My name's Roxas.

When the disappearances first started my parents asked me to keep an extra close eye on Sora. We didn't want him going missing too. So I did just that, it wasn't hard. But when he started sneaking out more, ditching school more, coming home later, it made things tough on me. I couldn't watch out for my brother when he wasn't there. I knew what I had to do and I didn't like the idea.


	2. Chapter 1: Initiation

**Sleeping Beauty**

**Chapter 1**

**Initiation**

Sneaking around was never something I liked to do, it made me uncomfortable. But I did it for Sora, to keep him safe. I followed him that day, after school, to the place he met his friends at. Donald and Goofy were there and they spotted me almost immediately though Sora hadn't once noticed me the whole way. They pointed me out and I couldn't help but wonder what would happen. Sora seemed surprised and asked me what I was doing, why I wasn't at home with mom and dad, and I shrugged in response. The duck boy talked to me for the first time that day and sounded so much like a real duck that I nearly jumped out of my skin. After discussing with the doggish one he turned to me. At that time I hadn't yet learned their names. Through their conversation, the only word I understood from my distance and through his odd speech was the word "key".

"You're Sora's brother?" he eyed me suspiciously. I just nodded. Sure, of course I'm Sora's brother. "Why are you here?" More questions?

"Keeping an eye on Sora." He nodded at this, seemed satisfied. Then the tall one spoke up.

"You're gonna have to leave soon, ahyuk!" I could only wonder why and what 'ah-huh-yuck' meant.

"Can't," I responded, "Parents told me I gotta stay with Sora." Shrug, "He's my brother." Sora looked slightly embarrassed. Or maybe that was my imagination. After all, Sora didn't show things like embarrassment much anymore and I missed seeing those things. The tall one seemed confused by my answer but the short one seemed even more pleased. This gave me the idea that the tall one was the brains of the group. That kind of reminded me of Hayner and I suddenly felt sad that I'd cancelled plans to meet him and my friends in The Usual Spot just to come do this.

"You can't stick with us." Sora didn't want me there? Was I ruining his afternoon? What did he even do these days with these strange men? I shook my head, I had to stay.

The fat one slowly shook his head, "You can't come. You can't stay with us unless you want to join us." Join? So this really is some kind of gang? How odd. "Think about it," he encouraged. Then they ran off, down a side road. I ran after them, but when I turned the corner they were gone as if no one had been there at all.

Two weeks later and after a good scolding from my parents for not taking care of Sora better I made up my mind to follow him again and join the "gang". They were harmless, after all, and it would let me watch out for Sora. So I did just that.

As I followed him and he once again didn't notice me I thought of what I would say to them, how I would convince them that I truly wanted to be in their gang. What would I say? This didn't turn out to be a problem.

When we arrived my brother took his place beside them and they all seemed unsurprised that I was there. I started to speak, "I decided that I want to join you." The fat one was visibly pleased.

"There's an initiation," the stout man explained, Sora nodded, the tall man grinned in a goofy way. I was surprised that they would immediately accept me. "But first!" and then they were all grinning. They jumped over to me, looking so extremely optimistic that I wasn't sure it was real happiness, and jumped up in front of me as they introduced themselves.

"I'm Dolald!" exclaimed the shortest, the leader.

"I'm Goofy, ahyuk!" cried the tall, dumb one.

"And I'm Sora of course," Sora finished and hugged me. He was happy. Happy that I'd joined him. Maybe I should have done this a long time ago. I suddenly didn't miss Hayner at all. I could have Hayner any day. Sora, on the other hand, was only his old self only every once in a while and I wanted to experience it whenever I could. He grinned again and I started to grin back when I noticed something strange about his expression that hadn't been there before. "Now for initiation."

Initiation took place a day later. I rested up as instructed by Sora and we snuck out together that night. Sora was ecstatic, I was confused. He took me to the back alleys of a neighborhood only a mile from our own. I recognized that this was the neighborhood a few girls from school lived in. Some of Sora's old friends, Kairi and Selphie. Didn't Wakka live out here too? Donald and Goofy were waiting for us. Donald held something that looked like a mage's staff from a comic book and Goofy held a shield that must have come from the same graphic novel, as well as a bag that squirmed and moved in the dim light. They handed Sora a large metal key, sharpened, with a yellow handle and a keychain hanging off the end in the shape of a mouse head. Each seemed familiar with their respective object.

They headed towards the backdoor of someone's house. The door was green. I decided that Donald or Goofy must live here or have a friend here. Most likely we would prank said friend and run off. Perhaps release that thing from the bag into the house, maybe it was a snake or something. That made sense for initiation. Why not? It wasn't too harmful. Donald tapped the door with his staff and it swung open. Had he picked the lock? We walked in ever so quietly, I followed their example that we needed to be sneaky. Up the stairs we went, to a pink bedroom door. They opened it quietly and we went in slowly, completely silent. It was a girl's bedroom. A girl…

I knew this girl. Her hair that flipped out too much and her large collection of stuffed plushies were not mistakable at this point. It was Selphie. Were we going to prank Selphie? Isn't it a little harsh to prank a girl? I'm 16 after all, Sora's 17, and the other two must be twenty-something. Weren't we too old to be pranking girls? Weren't we past the 'picking on the girls you like' stage?

The large key, blade thing was shoved in my face then and Sora is lucky that I didn't jump in surprise and wake up the apparent target. They stared at me expectantly so I took the thing in my hand, holding it awkwardly. Donald lowered his staff to hover over the head of the sleeping Selphie. We had gathered around her bed now and I felt bad for sneaking into a girl's bedroom. He motioned with his hands for me to take the key and touch the staff with it. I carefully lowered it over the staff and tapped it against the other object, sending something sparkling and misting over her head and face. I coughed a little as some of it reached my nose. This was some kind of gas.

She stopped breathing then and it took a moment or two to let my head process what was going on. We had just gassed her. She had died. We had killed her. I reached for her quickly, I needed to know she was okay, I needed to check her pulse, to make sure she wasn't just holding her breath, even to give her CPR, but I was stopped. Sora's hand grabbed mine and he shook his head. This told me two things. One was that it was too late, she was dead there was no saving Selphie. And two was that I didn't need to step out of line. I suddenly felt afraid. These men were killers. What were they doing? Was this the initiation for everyone in the gang of their hometown? Then I realized that they must be tricking me. I laughed.

Of course! They were tricking me! Initiations for gangs and groups often were tricks on the one joining. They thought they'd scare me? I laughed some more. As I looked from face to serious face I slowly stopped laughing. They were good actors. Sora took my hand, the one holding the key, in his hand. I watched. Goofy opened the bag and pulled out of it a small back creature. My heart nearly stopped as I recognized it from photographs in the morning paper and on a recent CNN news report. Black, small creature, long, crooked antannae, beady, golden eyes…

And then it clicked. I stopped laughing completely. These were the murderers, the ones that had been at large for the longest time and had everyone afraid to send their children to kindergarten everyday. Donald lifted Selphie's body into the bag with his gloved hands. Goofy set the creature in her place on the bed. There was still an indent in the sheets that her body had made. As Sora guided my hand and the key to press softly into the back of the creature, creating a small keyhole-shaped indent on it, it sunk in that I was an accomplice. I was a murderer.

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**I went through the editing process with this and the prologue at least four times before I thought I was pleased enough with it so I hope it's alright. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Some indication that you like or don't like it is my motivation, so please give me some sort of feedback. Thanks.**

Notebook Head


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